Correctional Boot Camps: Military Basic Training or a Model for Corrections?

Doris Layton MacKenzie, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland and Director of the Evaluation Research Group. Previously, she was a faculty member at Louisiana State University, where she was honored as a “Researcher of Distinction,” and was awarded a Visiting Scientist position at the National Institute of Justice. As Visiting Scientist, she provided expertise to federal, state and local jurisdictions on correctional boot camps, correctional policy, intermediate sanctions, research methodology, experimental design, statistical analyses, and evaluation techniques.

As an expert in criminal justice, Dr. MacKenzie has consulted for state and local jurisdictions and has testified before U.S. Senate and House Committees. She has an extensive publication record on such topics as examining what works to reduce crime in the community, inmate adjustment to prison, the impact of intermediate sanctions on recidivism, long-term offenders, methods of predicting prison populations, self-report criminal activities of probationers, and boot camp prisons. She directed funded research projects on the topics of “Multi-Site Study of Correctional Boot Camps,” “Descriptive Study of Female Boot Camps,” “Probationer Compliance With Conditions of Supervision” and “The National Study of Juvenile Correctional Institutions” and “What Works in Corrections.” She is past chair of the American Society of Criminology's Division on Corrections and Sentencing. She earned her doctorate from Pennsylvania State University.

Gaylene Styve Armstrong, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Arizona State University West. Her research has focused on corrections, juvenile delinquency, and applied statistical modeling. She was principal investigator on a grant funded by the National Institute of Justice that examined the effects of privatization on environmental quality in juvenile correctional facilities. This research on privatization resulted in a book titled Private vs. Public Operation of Juvenile Correctional Facilities. Some of her other recent research can also be found in Crime and Delinquency, Justice Quarterly, and Journal of Research on Crime and Delinquency. She was nominated for the Carnegie Foundation's U.S. Professor of the Year Award for her excellence in teaching. She obtained her doctorate in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Maryland.